June 2015

It has been championed by various critics and has its fair share of blurb-ready accolades, but, with all due respect, those people are mistaken. To its great credit, however, it provides an opportunity to examine exactly why the biopic is such a toxic, unpleasant, and inherently ridiculous affair.

There are dozens upon dozens of indelible moments in Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy that could be held up as emblematic of the glorious whole, its empathy and gentle wisdom. The three films – Pather Panchali (1955, and filmed over the course of the previous four years), Aparajito (1956), and The World of Apu (1959) – are awash in masterful touches, perfectly framed and naturalistically performed scenes, psychological depth, and haunting beauty.

The Big City, Indian master Satyajit Ray’s deeply feminist and empathetic 1963 depiction of a changing Calcutta, is nearly perfect in every way.

With nuanced performances, especially from the luminous Madhabi Mukherjee as Arati Mazumder and Anil Chatterjee as her wry, conflicted husband Subrata (Bhambal), and an effortless sense of place, custom, and the economic pressures that challenge tradition, the film is an utterly absorbing experience, by turns uplifting and heart-rending.

As Spike Lee’s Kickstarter-funded 2014 outing Da Sweet Blood of Jesus begins, its lead rattles off a full minute of arcane, uninterrupted exposition about the Ashanti culture, ancient blood transfusions, the collapse of their civilization thanks to addiction, and how this ties into the present day.

As a committed luddite and card-carrying hipster douchebag, I obviously have no regular access to a medium so pedestrian as “television.” But as someone shaped by the technology around me and in some ways desirous of it — let’s call this the “robot” part of the equation — I also obviously seize every opportunity to watch someone else’s television whenever possible.